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The Interactive ZIPScribble Map

Robert Kosara / January 15, 2012

The Interactive ZIPScribble Map

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The idea behind the ZIPScribble Map is simple: Connect all the ZIP or postal codes in a country in ascending order. Does that produce chaos or some kind of pattern? Use this interactive map to explore.

At the bottom of the selector is also the Traveling Presidential Candidate Map.


The source code for this page is available on github.

Filed Under: ZIPScribble Maps Tagged With: ZIPScribble Maps

Robert Kosara is Senior Research Scientist at Tableau Software, and formerly Associate Professor of Computer Science. His research focus is the communication of data using visualization. In addition to blogging, Robert also runs and tweets. Read More…

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Robin Mazhar says

    February 23, 2012 at 4:42 pm

    I sell items on Amazon.com and I’ve been trying to find a way to virtually ‘put a pushpin’ on a map for every customer’s zip code. It sounds silly, but I want to see where all my sales have ended up. Not for marketing purposes, just out of curiosity. I came across your zip scribble map in the process. It’s very interesting and I must commend you for a new map of the USA. :) thanks

    Reply
    • morri says

      March 5, 2013 at 8:02 am

      Do you know TargetMap.com? I think it does exactly what you need, puts your customers into the map using your data with zip codes.

      Reply
  2. David says

    May 6, 2012 at 12:23 pm

    There’s seems to be an error.

    On my screen, I’m seeing a box the width of the page, proportionately tall, yet 80% is blank white space while the map is in the top left hand corner, about 300px wide.

    I’m using FF 11.0 on Windows 7.

    Reply
  3. David says

    May 6, 2012 at 12:26 pm

    I went to the polymaps website, and found the same error there, so it’s apparently on their end. I checked in chrome and everything works fine. I’ll give them a heads up.

    Reply
  4. patersonplankrd says

    February 2, 2019 at 10:21 am

    In some regards, the ZIP Code system makes sense per the state level. As well as in some large cities and those in very rural areas,
    However, I find puzzling is the assignment of Three digit Sectional Center codes. Some of these seem to be random.
    For example, In Eastern New York State, Orange County Zips are nearly all 109. However there is a small section of the county where the code is 127. Here’s where it gets “silly”. To find adjacent , in numerical order,( i,e, 126, 127) codes one must travel well north of Albany to the far northeastern part of the state. I have searched many resources and cannot find any info as to how the USPS arrived at these assigned numbers. Nor can I find a methodology.

    Reply
  5. Shelley J Cook says

    February 15, 2021 at 10:45 am

    Not able to engage with the interactive zipscribble feature for the U.S. says, [raw] and then a big blank box.

    Reply

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